Letters to the Editor
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"Bees In The City"--has anyone contacted HBO?
It reminds me of how, at 32 years of age, I went to the Garfield Park Conservatory in the middle of Chicago to look at the gardens there. Just so happened that they wer having their annual honey harvest. They had stacks of trays full of honey and beeswax.
Now, I grew up in Chicago. If my neighborhood wasn't the ghetto, you could see it from there. I also saw a lot of bees.
And never in all of my born days did it occur to me that any of those bees were actually going off to make honey. Ever. Not in the city. Not where I lived.
I started a long conversation with one of the beekeepers:
"But where does the honey *come* from?"
"The bees."
"But how do they make it?"
"From the millions of flowers that are in or near the Conservatory. Sir."
"But it tastes like honey," I said, confused. "I would have thought it would taste like pop can backwash and garbage."
I think I actually pissed her off. And my date dragged me away.
But there was something so life-affirming about the whole thing that I talked about it for weeks.
I hope that damn hive collapse disease stays the hell away from Garfield Park.
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Love my wild bees
I don't have a hive or a colony, I just sit on my front stoop on summer evenings after work with a glass of wine and watch two bumblebees collecting pollen from my meadow sage. I have tons of other flowers, but they love nothing as dearly as the sage. I watch them go from blossom to blossom, bobbing in flight with their pollen baskets visible even from feet away because they've collected so much, and yet there is always more for them when they (or their cousins) come back the next day
No church, no temple, no meditation room, no spa can compete with that bliss. Somewhere St. Francis is smiling...
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Organic Gardening Magazine
sounded this alarm almost 20 years ago. I live inside the Beltway in Northern Virginia, and I've been gardening here for 19 years. Three years into my home garden, I noticed a precipitous drop in the number of bees, lady bugs, and beneficial predators in my garden. I took several steps that have lead to a recovery in their number.
I use no chemicals - not even so-called beneficials. (They always kill something in the food chain.) I am primarily a vegetable gardener, but I plant a variety of herbs (the bees LOVE the herb blossoms) and early blooming plants to give the beneficials something to feed on. I have three enormous bee balm plants that, in season, are always covered with bees. (And no, I have never been stung by a bee. A well-fed lion is a happy lion...)I work hard to keep a healthy garden: Good soil and a variety of plants are key.
It isn't just sad that the bees are going missing: It is a threat to our food supply. Those of you who don't garden can help by not using chemical lawn services, and by purchasing organic honey directly from beekeepers at your local farmer's market. And plant something for the beneficials to eat.
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Great article
This was a nice article. I don't like most articles in Salon these days. They seem divisive, judgemental, and deliberately obnoxious. But this was an interesting article about a current topic that was an enjoyable read.
As an aside, I spent the weekend at a cabin in the western most hills of Central California where a rosemary plant was in bloom. I was glad to see it was buzzing with busy bees.
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A swelling of discomfort
This is one of those articles that made the hair stand up on my arms and sent chills down my spine. While beautifully written and sentimental, I could not help but feel a pall of dread descend upon me. It is in the little things and details where the big problems first reveal themselves. The degradation of our environment and food supply has been an oft discussed topic for years, but the simple honesty of a personal observation contained in this article struck an emotional chord that has left me quite unsettled. The death of so many bees is a evidence of our failed stewardship of the earth and all of its creatures. I do hope research can find the exact cause and counteract it, but something needs to be done more immediately it would seem and I hope the beekeepers continue their vigilance.
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busy bees
I have a complete and utter phobia of bees. I'm not allergic to them - in fact, I just received my first sting last summer and it wasn't that bad. They just terrify me. Just the ZZzzzZZZZzzz sound, or something like it, is enough to make me flinch and tense all of my muscles. I'm getting chills just thinking about it. That's the definition of a phobia, I suppose - irrational terror.
But reading this article, I could feel the author's love of her bees. She described the hive in a way I'd never imagined. I'd heard about the disappearance of hives, and was horrified in a general "our world is doomed" kind of way, but I hadn't thought about the very personal toll that it must take on their keepers. I'm so sorry for her loss.
Every so often, I come home to find bees in my house. I'm not sure how they get in, but they can't find their way out again, so I find them dead or dying on the windowsills. I'm told that it's because we have a canal nearby, so there's probably a hive there which swarms occasionally, and the bees are motivated to crawl through every little crack and crevice in search of a new home. I haven't seen any this spring. Now, despite the fear, I almost hope I do - it would mean that the wild hive on the canal is still going strong.
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Inertia,
your post made me smile. I am not a relaxed person, NOT a spiritual person. I'm very impatient. Am not particularly into feelings. Can't stand religious services of any kind. Let's just say that I'm not very zen like.
However, when I'm in my garden, things are different. There are few things in life - sitting with one of my cats, having coffee by myself on the deck in the quiet of the early morning, and listening to the bees buzzing in my garden - that make me relax. The buzzing of the bees gives me a feeling of contentment that is hard to describe.